Espo's last game was against Buffalo on this date, picking up an assist in the 1st period of a 3-3 tie. Also rocked a +2 in his finale as he played over 22 minutes of the match.
At the time of his retirement he was 2nd in scoring (goals/points) to Gordie Howe.
Over the course of a full season, it's 21 game-winning goals, which seems about right for Auston "Clutch" Matthews.
Life's weird since, as most know, Phil is one of the founders of the Tampa Bay Lightning :)
Phil with the Boston Bruins - Tony with the Chicago Blackhawks Montreal Canadiens
Source: Watching the Boat Parade; story goes Luke refused to be near/touch the cup during his brothers celebrations
Also, in 1973-β74, Dave Hodge and Wayne Cashman came in third and fourth, all Bruins for the top-four.
The Top 5 are:
| Player | Multi Goal Games |
|---|---|
| Gretzky | 189 |
| Brett Hull | 158 |
| Lemieux | 154 |
| Howe | 147 |
| Esposito | 143 |
| Ovechkin | 143 |
If you only counted the goals Ovi has scored in multi goal games (317 total) he would rank 22nd in total goals since entering the league and 190th in goals all time.
https://twitter.com/LockedOnNHLPods/status/1337450577840771072?s=20
Just to put some historical context on how dominant McDavid has been. He's ridiculous. But I thought Iβd have a little fun with the even strength vs. PP debate as well.
These days it seems a lot of people treat even strength points (EVP) as the βreal dealβ instead of total points. So just for fun, what if we based the Art Ross around the leader in EVP, rather than total points? For those unaware, the NHL actually tracks the EV/PP/SH split going all the way back to 1934. So we can see how this would play out historically. I think you might be surprised by some of the results, and for the record I don't really support this but thought it would be interesting. There will be tables at the end but some fun takeaways:
- As you can see from the title, Gretzky was in another stratosphere in terms of even-strength scoring. He is 100% the greatest player of all time in that regard.
- The other players who have led 3x are Doug Bentley, Jaromir Jagr, Guy Lafleur, and Stan Mikita. All HOFers as youβd expect, although perhaps Bentley is a little surprising.
- Sidney Crosby has led the league in EVP the same number of times as Jean Beliveau. Thatβs good!
- Sidney Crosby has led the league in EVP the same number of times as Jiri Hudler. Thatβs bad.
- Some players who would now have βArt Rossesβ are Maurice Richard (2x), Henri Richard (2x), Jean Ratelle (2x), Eric Staal, Daniel Briere, Markus Naslund, Pavel Bure, Teemu Selanne, John Leclair, Sergei Fedorov, Kevin Stevens, and Walt Tkaczuk.
- Some players who would no longer have βArt Rossesβ are Nikita Kucherov, Jamie Benn, Marty St. Louis, Bernie Geoffrion, and Max Bentley. Mario Lemieux drops from 6 Rosses to 2.
- The All-Strengths points leader and the EVP leader has coincided 67% of the time.
- The All-Strengths points leader and the PPP leader has coincided 44% of the time.
- The EVP leader and the PPP leader has coincided 24% of the time.
Some details: this is indeed even-strength, not 5v5, which isnβt available very far back. If there was a tie, it was treated as co-winners, no tiebreakers. And just like the real Art Ross, you donβt get special treatment for missing games.
In the table below, players in bold are either active or not yet eligible for the HOF, while players in italics are eligible but haven't been elected to the HOF. Everyone else in the table is a HOF member.
| Player | Times Led in EVP |
|---|---|
| Wayne Gretzky | 11 |
| Phil Esposito | 4 |
| Gordie Howe | 4 |
| Doug Bentley | 3 |
**Jaromir Jag
... keep reading on reddit β‘
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/17/sports/sports-people-hockey-esposito-in-scuffle.html
And
>Phil Esposito, general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning, plans to call Toronto police from his home today regarding an incident after a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night, team spokesman Gerry Helper said. Toronto Star columnist Bob McKenzie filed a complaint with police after an alleged shoving match in the Lightning dressing room. Esposito left the city before police could take his statement.
I think Bob talked about this on an early episode of his podcast and he gave a pretty good explanation. The long and short of it is that Bob wrote that he though Phil was a bad GM, and it's his job to do so. Esposito didn't like that so when Bob came into the dressing room and a Tampa Bay loss Phil wasn't having it. Telling him to get the fuck out of his dressing room etc. Bob declined to leave saying he had every right to be there, it escalated to Esposito shoving him and kind of half punch pushing him. Bob then left the room, cooled off came back and was going to try and talk to Phil but it just turned into a swearing and shouting match between the two so McKenzie said okay fuck it let the police deal with it. They ended up resolving it before it ever went to court, Phil signed an apology letter and it's all water under the bridge now. It was just an interesting story to me as Bob McKenzie is the last guy I would expect to get into a physical altercation
I was talking to my grandpa today and he was telling me about how his dad would always yell at the tv when esposito was on the ice. He said that he was the only doctor in the Soo so he would have delivered Esposito. My great grandpa was never a rich man and did a lot out of kindness (he also was a medic in ww1) because most couldn't afford a doctor. this might have been the reason why he yelled at the tv, story goes he would always say "There's that son of a bitch from the west side! He hasn't even paid yet!" TL;DR Phil Esposito owes my family like 100 bucks for being born
